


Oh, my little Riddle

by StarOverHeaven



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Harry raises Tom, Heartstring Snipper, Implied Master of Death Harry, Light Angst, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarOverHeaven/pseuds/StarOverHeaven
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle never thought he would cry, but he was now.





	

Tom Marvolo Riddle never thought he would cry, but he was now.

It was degrading, foolish even- but he could not stop. He had been so focused, so determined to find a source of true immortality- and now, he realizes, he was selfish.

Green eyes dull with age watch him with fondness (dare he say it love, but he was far too ashamed to think that) as he leaned over the bed that his adopted father rested in. He had not noticed, focused upon his studies and gaining followers as he had been.

“Oh, darling.” His father murmured, reaching out with a pale and shaking hand (and when did he get so sick? How could Tom not have noticed?) to wipe away his tears and Tom was ashamed when he started sobbing for real, and his father pulled him closer (tried to, but he was far too weak, so Tom went with it, because the thought of his father being weak was far too odd for him, because Harry had always been so strong and gentle with him) into a hug.

“My baby.” Harry murmured, and Tom couldn’t even protest like he did when he was younger, couldn’t complain and pout whenever he did because Harry was quite literally on his deathbed, because his own body, his own magic- it was killing him.

“I could save you.” Tom mumbles into Harry’s chest where his father is attempting and failing to smother him into a hug.

“Darling boy of mine,” Harry murmurs, and oh when did his voice get so soft and so weak? “Your horcrux has a price, just like all things do. And if this is my price for getting to raise you, to see you grow up? I’m perfectly fine with buying.” And he smiles, like dying is _OKAY_ with him and Tom doesn’t _**UNDERSTAND.**_ (it is only many years before he realizes that his father knew what he had done to achieve immortality)

“I don’t want you to leave.” Tom says finally. “Dad.” And his voice, oh it’s shaking and cracking like he's going through puberty again and why is he still crying? These warm tracks down his face, and his throat feels like he’s swallowed a tennis ball.

“Oh, baby.” Harry sighs, “Death was inevitable from the start. I wanted to last longer but my family never had the best luck with lasting longer than I have. You’re already out of school by a few years and I named you my heir. I can only hope you’ll last longer, though I must admit I am sad I was cheated out of grandchildren.”

Tom stays quiet, and his father slowly (pale shaking hands and when did he get so thin he was always small but he's shrunken in on himself and how did he miss this was he even eating?) wiped them away, like he always did when Tom was younger and got frustrated so easily.

And he knows he was not the best child, being adopted at seven when he had already had the entire orphanage fearing him, but he could not for the life of him frighten Harry off. Like he’d already decided on Tom before he stepped in the door.

Tom had found himself hoping, despite himself, that this well-dressed and obviously well-off man WOULD take him, would adopt him and keep him instead of bring him back at his freakish tendencies, and Harry did.

And instead of calling him a demon when he spoke to snakes, his new father had started calling him his ‘little snake’ instead, and Tom had found himself falling in love with this new dynamic- this father-son relationship he had never known.

And Tom had not been the best child (he knows he knows that he was an awful, bitter little thing) for Harry, and he was grateful when he sees his memories, the tired circles Harry always had under his eyes as he raised him but the brightness in the man’s eyes.

Learning magic had been wonderful, especially under an unbiased tutor such as his father, and over time Tom had wondered (more and more often, especially after he went to Hogwarts) what his father would think of him becoming a Dark Lord, but it seemed that he would never get his dad’s opinion, not now anyways.

Tom had hoped, dreamed, that his dad would approve. That he would not care and love him anyways. But Tom did not want to risk it- not with his father upon his deathbed where he might ban him from seeing him forever, and his father would die alone.

He remembered, bitterly, how his father had seemed less and less lively, more tired, as time passed on. How he had started going to sleep earlier and earlier as Tom matured, how he seemed bone-tired when he graduated Hogwarts. How had he missed it? Missed his father slowly dying before his eyes as his magic slowly ate away his body, for he was too powerful for his body to handle?

But Harry had always been lively when he was a child, forcing him out of his shell by carefully bringing him to lessons- dancing became a hobby, magic a passion, pranking disdained (though Harry did not do it often) and then, Harry started to teach him more, and more and more and more- necromancy, Dark Arts, Light Arts, Grey magic, neutral- so much, so many things.

But where his father was just as powerful as Tom, his body could not hold it like Tom’s could- and he had died slowly, over the years that he had matured. It is a breaking thought- he remembers watching his father paint complex rituals, and do five-person rituals with ease as the only person doing it, ten people, fifteen- thirty, it made no difference, and Tom could do the same.

He wondered, briefly, if his power was given to him by the blood adoption, but doubted it greatly.

But even when Tom surpassed his father in power, Harry was dying. He did not understand how he could hold such power, but his father drew the short stick, because his body simply wasn’t strong enough.

He carefully intertwines his fingers with his fathers as the older man rests, eyes closed. He hasn’t even gained any wrinkles- smile lines, perhaps, but not many. He is young for a wizard- he was twenty when he adopted him, but now Tom was thirty-four, forming an army under the Ministry’s nose, and his father was forty-seven and already dying. It was not fair.

But life was never fair, and neither was Death.

He remembers, when he was young, a younger Harry wrapping a cloak around him.

‘An invisibility cloak. The oldest and most ancient one. It has been passed through the family for generations, Tom, and I hope you sire an heir that I get to meet when you pass it on.’ Harry had smiled as he spoke this, and Tom remembers turning a fire-pink color at the insinuation of marriage and having children of his own, but he had not protested.

He remembers that this cloak is always with him- a small pouch shrunken, hidden next to his money pouch where he stores the cloak.

He takes it out now, the shiny black-brown-silver material silently settled next to his father.

Years later, Tom remembered his father- this very moment, these thoughts, and then he remembered his father’s soft, quiet warning.

He remembered how his father had kissed his forehead when they went to bed every day until he turned eleven, and Tom had stated he was far too grown up for such things, and all his father had done was smile a strained, broken but somehow still happy smile, like nothing Tom would say would make him any less proud, or would ever hurt him- but Tom had seen him hurt.

Had seen how he grew strained under Tom’s more foolish comments when he was younger- especially when Tom had discovered that due to his father’s blood adoption he had replaced his Muggle father, declaring Tom a pureblood.

Somehow, he had forgotten at his young age that his father was still a halfblood, but he remembered, when he was eleven, had held his tongue.

He had been such a fool.

He had dreaded going home during the summer and winter breaks, away from Hogwarts and back to the little cottage his father owned, back to his lovely dad and their little home where Harry cooked every night and morning and fed him regularly and bought any book he wanted, even despite the fact that he had always been particularly worried when he spent too much, like he was doing a despicable act.

These things that he had taken for granted- he barely knew a thing about his father. He knew his favorite color was green, but not his favorite food or book. He knew that his father was the offspring of a pureblood and a muggleborn. He knew not where Harry was from, nor how Harry knew so much about Hogwarts despite being home schooled.

He knew not how his father had known where the Chamber of Secrets was.

But he did know that his father had given him all he could- and he had squandered it, dreaded coming home despite the fact that his father had never been overbearing, never wanted to know too much or too little like the orphanage had demanded to know.

His father died weeks after he first arrived to visit him, in his arms as they rested, Tom sitting on the edge of his father’s bed and murmuring of how well everything in school was doing, how he loved his father and regretted not being home more often. His father had kissed his forehead, like he had when Tom was younger, and smiled and told him he was proud of him- so very proud, that he would do great and wonderful, beautiful things and he hoped that maybe, one day, Tom could be even happier, and Harry could rest easy knowing Tom was well and happy, not poor and well-off.

It was done so silently, so suddenly, that Tom hadn’t even realized it happened until a few seconds later, as he murmured that he loved his dad, too. His father closed his eyes, and smiled- this huge, happy thing that Tom knew was the one where he was so proud and happy and his eyes twinkled whenever he did it.

And slowly, his breathing slowed, until it had stopped. In his very arms, his father’s heart stopped, and slowly, slowly, his magic seeped into Tom’s- a final gift, Tom would read later in his father’s will. Because his father had always known Tom loved magic, and knew how he was awed by how easily Harry handled his own, green and sparkling with love as it settled in his own, blackened with bitterness but lit with his father’s love.

He could not access it- a warm bundle of hope and love and understanding in his chest that soon, he forgot about it, sealed it off on accident as he ripped up his soul.

His father died in his arms.

And Tom remembers this, many years later, holding his horcruxes.

 

And he regrets.

 


End file.
